There is an execellent interview with former head of the Pakistani intelligence service, General Hamid Gul, here. He makes some very strong points. It is undoubtedly true that it is warlords in the US-backed Karzai government who control 90% of the world heroin trade, and that the trade has expanded to its highest ever levels under coalition control. It is undoubtedly true that US foreign policy in the region is dictated by the desire to access Central Asian oil and gas. It is also undoubtedly true that the US works closely with Mossad and with India in Central Asia, and that many of its attacks appear calculated to stir up rather than ease conflict.

Turning the focus of our discussion to the Afghan drug problem, I noted that the U.S. mainstream corporate media routinely suggest that the Taliban is in control of the opium trade. However, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Anti-Government Elements (or AGEs), which include but are not limited to the Taliban, account for a relatively small percentage of the profits from the drug trade. Two of the U.S.’s own intelligence agencies, the CIA and the DIA, estimate that the Taliban receives about $70 million a year from the drugs trade. That may seem at first glance like a significant amount of money, but it’s only about two percent of the total estimated profits from the drug trade, a figure placed at $3.4 billion by the UNODC last year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has just announced its new strategy for combating the drug problem: placing drug traffickers with ties to insurgents ?”and only drug lords with ties to insurgents ?” on a list to be eliminated. The vast majority of drug lords, in other words, are explicitly excluded as targets under the new strategy. Or, to put it yet another way, the U.S. will be assisting to eliminate the competition for drug lords allied with occupying forces or the Afghan government and helping them to further corner the market.

I pointed out to the former ISI chief that Afghan opium finds its way into Europe via Pakistan, via Iran and Turkey, and via the former Soviet republics. According to the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, convoys under General Rashid Dostum ?” who was reappointed last month to his government position as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan National Army by President Hamid Karzai ?” would truck the drugs over the border. And President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been accused of being a major drug lord. So I asked General Gul who was really responsible for the Afghan drug trade.

“Now, let me give you the history of the drug trade in Afghanistan,” his answer began. “Before the Taliban stepped into it, in 1994 ?” in fact, before they captured Kabul in September 1996 ?” the drugs, the opium production volume was 4,500 tons a year. Then gradually the Taliban came down hard upon the poppy growing. It was reduced to around 50 tons in the last year of the Taliban. That was the year 2001. Nearly 50 tons of opium produced. 50. Five-zero tons. Now last year the volume was at 6,200 tons. That means it has really gone one and a half times more than it used to be before the Taliban era.” He pointed out, correctly, that the U.S. had actually awarded the Taliban for its effective reduction of the drug trade. On top of $125 million the U.S. gave to the Taliban ostensibly as humanitarian aid, the State Department awarded the Taliban $43 million for its anti-drug efforts. “Of course, they made their mistakes,” General Gul continued. “But on the whole, they were doing fairly good. If they had been engaged in meaningful, fruitful, constructive talks, I think it would have been very good for Afghanistan.”

Referring to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, General Gul told me in a later conversation that Taliban leader “Mullah Omar was all the time telling that, look, I am prepared to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country for a trial under Shariah. Now that is where ?” he said [it] twice ?” and they rejected this. Because the Taliban ambassador here in Islamabad, he came to me, and I asked him, ‘Why don’t you study this issue, because America is threatening to attack you. So you should do something.’ He said, ‘We have done everything possible.’ He said, ‘I was summoned by the American ambassador in Islamabad’ ?” I think Milam was the ambassador at that time ?” and he told me that ‘I said, “Look, produce the evidence.” But he did not show me anything other than cuttings from the newspapers.’ He said, ‘Look, we can’t accept this as evidence, because it has to stand in a court of law. You are prepared to put him on trial. You can try him in the United Nations compound in Kabul, but it has to be a Shariah court because he’s a citizen under Shariah law. Therefore, we will not accept that he should be immediately handed over to America, because George Bush has already said that he wants him “dead or alive”, so he’s passed the punishment, literally, against him.” Referring to the U.S. rejection of the Taliban offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan or hand him over to a third country, General Gul added, “I think this is a great opportunity that they missed.”

Returning to the drug trade, General Gul named the brother of President Karzai, Abdul Wali Karzai. “Abdul Wali Karzai is the biggest drug baron of Afghanistan,” he stated bluntly. He added that the drug lords are also involved in arms trafficking, which is “a flourishing trade” in Afghanistan. “But what is most disturbing from my point of view is that the military aircraft, American military aircraft are also being used. You said very rightly that the drug routes are northward through the Central Asia republics and through some of the Russian territory, and then into Europe and beyond. But some of it is going directly. That is by the military aircraft. I have so many times in my interviews said, ‘Please listen to this information, because I am an aware person.’ We have Afghans still in Pakistan, and they sometimes contact and pass on the stories to me. And some of them are very authentic. I can judge that. So they are saying that the American military aircraft are being used for this purpose. So, if that is true, it is very, very disturbing indeed.”

The full interview ranges more widely and is well worth reading. I was unaware that Gul had been banned from the UK and US. But I am unsurprised. I can tell you from direct inside knowledge that the UK/US view is that the ISI is riven with Al-Qaida sympathisers. This suspicion is directed at Pakistanis who are in fact not in any way Al-Qaida sympathisers, but simply ask sceptical and critical questions about the “War on Terror”.

The demonisation of such people again tends to create the very conflict and anti-Western feeling which is pretended to be the concern. In fact conflict, which the US sees itself as in a position ultimately to win militarily, tends to be the aim. General Gul evidently feels that destabilisation of Pakistan is a US strategic goal. That is certainly increasingly the result of US policy, but I doubt it is acknowledged, even internally, as an aim.

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I don’t often watch television news, but on the few occasions I’ve happened to see a news item about Afghanistan, Taliban production of drugs has been mentioned. I’ve seen no mention of production by Karzai or his brother on TV news. Could any regular TV watcher tell me if this is generally the case please? I’d read of the Taleban clamp-down on opium production pre 2001, so the more recent reports I’d seen didn’t seem to make sense.

Yes Clark it is true that under the Taliban the opium trade was surpressed by means of threats and physical punishment. Under the auspice of NATO, madcap general Dostum started to build large labs and so did Karzais brother, indeed most of the top warlords have their own production bases.

Nato could have cut off the pre cursors needed to turn opium into heroin, but instead choose to sie one of their bases right next to Dostums heroin lab., a clear sign to go ahead in anyone’s language. Gul, although one would take his comments with a pinch of salt, has been in the position to have known much more than these modern facts and I’m sure that he will come out with it in good time, Israel, India and the US/UK cabal will see to that by their actions against Pakistan.

What is shocking is that nobody in the US/UK administrations seems to be listening to the advances that are made for peacefull resolutions in both countries.

A Sharia court, although not my favourite justice, is good enough for Saudi rulers, so it should be good enough for us to accept as a measure of justice to judge Bin laden.

Quote: “In fact conflict, which the US sees itself as in a position ultimately to win militarily, tends to be the aim. General Gul evidently feels that destabilisation of Pakistan is a US strategic goal. That is certainly increasingly the result of US policy, but I doubt it is acknowledged, even internally, as an aim.”

‘Alternative’, Washington-based commentator, Webster Tarpley has proclaimed that this would be a primary foreign policy goal of the Obama administration since about January 2008 when he recognised that Wall Street and the CIA had transferred their support from Clinton to Obama.

In his relevatory and startling book, ‘The Obama Deception’ he predicts the shift from Neo-Con style Israel cenredness (attack weak little countries like Iraq and Aghanistan that cannot hit back) towards service of the insane global geopolitical vision of Zbigniew Brysinski who is Obama’s long-time mentor.

In his book ‘The Grand Chess-Board’ Bryzinsky lays it out…..deprive China of raw materials by disrupting the politics of states that are natural allies of China (like Pakistan and a whole ‘string of pearls’ dotted around the Indian Ocean on the way to/from Africa). The ideal scenario would be to get a friendly government installed in Iran. Turn Iran against Russia and then, by starving China of resources it needs encourage conflict between China and resource-rich Russia……leaving Anglo-American interests in a dominant global position for another century or so.

These are the lunatics that control the rudders of destiny.

Tarpley’s book is well worth a read. He was totally accurate on the US domestic policy front, predicting exactly which promises Obama would immediately ditched after being elected.

Obama is basically using ‘left wing cover’ to implement a corporate-serving fascist agenda at home. America is implementing socialism for the rich (bail ‘em out) and penury for the poor…..much like the way we are going ourselves.

America IS paying an enormous price for Israeli dominance in the M.E. Not just America but all the Western nations which have accepted the ILSA sanctions regime on Iran and Libya. Outrageously expensive for no national purpose whatsoever. However, enormous investment went into the conquest of the Western hemisphere and that seems to be paying off now. It seems one has to take a centuries long view, along with having a completely racist perspective to see any logic in it all.

In this piece Gul promulgates the ‘war for energy pipeline’ meme. Which is quite shallow for a number of reasons:

The TAPI pipeline motive suggested by Gul along with his statement that the aggressors sought to keep the Chinese away fails to be confirmed by the facts. Haliburton and G.E. are presently working for China building alternate pipelines and pumping stations from Central Asia directly to China. That conflicts with Gul’s position. He should stick to the facts or at least develop a theory that makes sense.

Too bad, because he does have some interesting things to say. His credibility is undermined by his adoption of a baseless meme.

The simplistic world view of ‘energy wars’ seems to fail at explaining a few things such as the facts that Sinopec is not only the fastest growing energy producer in North America, but it is also publicly traded in New York. One would also have to wonder why China has been financing the US militarism. Perhaps one should try to answer those questions before becoming to attached to the ‘struggle with China for resources’ meme. If the US were out to stymie Chinese participation in energy production and distribution they could easily start right at home where many of the big new projects are relying not only on Chinese corporations but Chinese engineers also. Who gives them the visas? How do they get the leases? Licenses and Permits? No, America is not in an existential struggle with China for energy. That’s bogus disinformation.

At this time new pipelines have been built would make any resurrection of the TAPI pipeline uneconomic so there is simply no argument to be made that the ongoing occupation is about the TAPI pipeline..

The best explanation for the NATO presence in the Middle East is that they are securing Israel’s regional dominance by threatening Iran and destabilising Pakistan with its ‘Islamic bomb’. This theory actually comports with reality, the big new military bases in Afghanistan are built closer to Iran than to the Pashtun areas of resistance.

It is quite disappointing that Hammond fell for this line which Gul put forward. Gul seems to be grasping around hoping to glom onto something.

America IS paying an enormous price for Israeli dominance in the M.E. Not just America but all the Western nations which have accepted the ILSA sanctions regime on Iran and Libya. Outrageously expensive for no national purpose whatsoever. However, enormous investment went into the conquest of the Western hemisphere and that seems to be paying off now. It seems one has to take a centuries long view, along with having a completely racist perspective to see any logic in it all.

In this piece Gul promulgates the ‘war for energy pipeline’ meme. Which is quite shallow for a number of reasons:

The TAPI pipeline motive suggested by Gul along with his statement that the aggressors sought to keep the Chinese away fails to be confirmed by the facts. Haliburton and G.E. are presently working for China building alternate pipelines and pumping stations from Central Asia directly to China. That conflicts with Gul’s position. He should stick to the facts or at least develop a theory that makes sense.

Too bad, because he does have some interesting things to say. His credibility is undermined by his adoption of a baseless meme.

The simplistic world view of ‘energy wars’ seems to fail at explaining a few things such as the facts that Sinopec is not only the fastest growing energy producer in North America, but it is also publicly traded in New York. One would also have to wonder why China has been financing the US militarism. Perhaps one should try to answer those questions before becoming to attached to the ‘struggle with China for resources’ meme. If the US were out to stymie Chinese participation in energy production and distribution they could easily start right at home where many of the big new projects are relying not only on Chinese corporations but Chinese engineers also. Who gives them the visas? How do they get the leases? Licenses and Permits? No, America is not in an existential struggle with China for energy. That’s bogus disinformation.

At this time new pipelines have been built would make any resurrection of the TAPI pipeline uneconomic so there is simply no argument to be made that the ongoing occupation is about the TAPI pipeline..

The best explanation for the NATO presence in the Middle East is that they are securing Israel’s regional dominance by threatening Iran and destabilising Pakistan with its ‘Islamic bomb’. This theory actually comports with reality, the big new military bases in Afghanistan are built closer to Iran than to the Pashtun areas of resistance.

It is quite disappointing that Hammond fell for this line which Gul put forward. Gul seems to be grasping around hoping to glom onto something.

On the morning of the 18th Jan 1991 Uslam Beg got up in front of the Pakistani Parliament and if the translation from Urdu was accurate declared the Armed Forces of Pakistan allies of their “Shia Muslim Brother” Saddam Hussein against the Infidel invaders of Kuwait….

Of course there was a new leader of the Pakistani Armed Forces after lunchtime – but that’s not the point.

Taking these guys at face value or at their word – phew… that’s a /massive/ leap of faith – reading between the lines and having a nasty, suspicious mind engaged while taking it in is mandatory.

Gul is a piece of work – no mistake.

The opium figures bandied about are a fiction.

I’m concerned about Obama and the Zbig too.

And.. Afghans destabilising Pakistan – like it could be made /more/ unstable?? Ask Pervez Musharraff about that one.

I’ve always believed the UK/US are deeply involved in the export of opium from Afghanistan not just in military planes but in the whole supply chain through their intelligence services. I would think the income from the sales fund the war and the ailing economies.

Didn’t Benazir Bhutto suspect Hamid Gul of being behind the first assassination attempt on her?

Isn’t there credible evidence that the ISI DO have Taliban/AQ sympathisers within their ranks?

To what extent did the Taliban adopt the opium eradication policies as a purely opportunistic policy when, for years, they had allowed it to continue with the stipulation it shouldn’t be sold to Muslims?

Hamid Gul was also the brains behind the Battle of Jalalabad in the closing years of Najibullah.

Teaming up with that loveable rogue Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the CIA, Afghan children were turfed out of refugee camps and hurled at government troops across the minefields.

Gul is well-known as one of the most extreme supporters of jihadists and the Taliban. This isn’t simply UK/US/Israeli lies, he’s on record as being anti-secular, anti-socialist/Marxist. Books by Steve Coll and Ahmed Rashid detail this.

And yes, the pipeline thing is really getting rather rusty. Where are these pipelines? How the Hell are permanent war and oil/gas pipeline infrastructure supposed to be consistent or complementary policies?

As for drugs, how many photos have we seen of proud British/American/Australian boys on patrol in the middle of a poppy field? (None?! Go google ‘troops poppy field’ in google images) Okay, so imagine those photos albeit in the golden triangle with Lao troops. We’d know what those troops were there for wouldn’t we? They were there to guard the fields. Obviously. And our brave lads?

Well they’re at war with the Taleban aren’t they? These being the Taleban who’d reduced the opium crop in Afghanistan to zero. Sorry what was the question again? I’ve lost the plot. Who are the bad guys in this stupid flick?

And then there’s Al Qaeda. Given that it means ‘base’ and is short for ‘database’, this being the database used by the CIA to smuggle arms and personnel into Afghanistan in the late seventies and then again later in Kosovo (just ask Robin Cook. Oh wait, he’s dead); also given that its ‘founder’ Osama Bin Laden was a CIA asset, codename Tim Osman, bolster this with the Bin Laden family and Bush family being best barbecue buddies; and finally given the obvious and ironic fact that Al Qaeda has in no way advanced the interest of Muslims at all, indeed has only advanced the interests of those who’ve long called for the smashing of Muslim states (and those who profit from it sure) – why can’t we just float the obvious idea that Al Qaeda makes no sense as a bunch of Muslims who hate us for our freedom. Like that ever made sense to begin with.

Given that the answer to the question ‘Could Al Qaeda be completely fake’ is ‘Yes’, bugger it, I’m just going to call it. There is no Al Qaeda apart from the CIA/Mossad and whomever they’ve paid or duped.

Oh, did I mention that Al Qaeda’s number three leader, Azzam Al Riki, is actually a nice Jewish boy from Orange County by the name of Adam Pearlman? I mean honestly!

Hmm… imagined Al Qaeda board meeting to discuss whom to move into the number three slot –

‘How about this Jewish boy Adam Pearlman?’

‘What can you tell us about him?’

‘Well he’s Jewish for starters. I mean really Jewish, his grandfather was head of the ADL. Hmm …very young …recent convert …no experience …liked satanic heavy metal music. Um wait, it seems he’s engaged in attacks on American people.’

‘Well that sounds promising.’

‘Oh wait, it was Muslims. He got arrested for beating up Muslims outside some Mosques in California.’

‘What about finance experience? Military experience? A wealth of contacts in the Muslim world?’

‘Nope, not a sausage.’

‘Bloody hell! Are there any pluses at all?’

‘Well, he’s very enthusiastic. And he says he hates Americans for their freedoms.’

‘Does he? I have to be honest and say I never got that one.’

‘Me neither. Actually it’s one of Bush’s but you’ve got to admit it’s kind of catchy.’

‘Hmm… he’s not a spook is he?’

‘I asked him that and he said that he wasn’t.’

‘Okay then.’

‘Look, never mind all that – he’s the only one who applied for the job.’

‘Bloody Muslims! Here we are trying to institute Sharia law and none of them will be in it! Hell, let’s give the job to the Jewish boy – at least he’s keen! Hands up for the Jewish boy. All agreed then!’

Try this as the most reliable map of what’s happening in SW and Central Asia:

In the Caspian-Hormuz Sweetoil Corridor lies about two thirds of the remaining easy-get, land-or-shallow-sea-based sweet, light crude (the most prized, most energetically and financially profitable kind), plus masses of natural gas. Control that and you have a strong position as global hegemon. Control it strongly enough and you are the global dictator for a while, especially in these increasingly Interesting Times of Peak Everything.

The most important peaking commodity, of course, is oil. Global production has just gone through its historic peak in the period ’05 to ’08, and is now starting its decades-long descent.

Since we have a global economy which has become fatally hyper-dependent on petro-energy, and since we have watched our global (hom. sap.) population overshoot the Earth’s natural carrying capacity by several billions, purely on the temporary food-growing splurge enabled — briefly — by petro-driven Big Ag, we are all in seriously deep doo-doo for the next few decades, whilst the global birth-rate and death-rate change places and solve our overshoot problem for us, without any humanitarian management input from us.

In these ‘sauve-qui-peut’ times, whoever controls the Corridor decisively is going to be best placed to be the survivor axis after the cull is complete, and after what then remains of humankind have shifted, chaotically and perforce, to a non-petro-driven global economy. Or more likely by then it will be a collection of relocalised economies with only a light, mainly sail-mediated, international trade.

Control of the Corridor’s petro-energy, and the pipelines which will shift most of it to its end-users, and to the warm-water Indian Ocean ports which will ship a good deal of it intercontinentally to non-Eurasian end-users, is still very much the un-rusty, shiny main drive of this global resource struggle currently trampling genocidally over the Af-Pak region.

But there’s a beautiful big bonus here too, as detailed by — for example — Mike Ruppert in his ‘From The Wilderness’ archives and in his classic ‘Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil’. It’s this:

The CIA has been for much of its existence a global facilitator of the world trade in illicit addictive drugs. It has done this, and continues to do it, because it has funded a good deal of its own covert gangsterism from the trade, but mainly because its real masters, the US imperial gics [gangsters-in-charge] have for long laundered much of the gigantic profits from the global trade through their Wall Street banks, as they continue to do now.

This is a significant source of extra loot to add to their piles, and probably (understandably, precise accounts are hard to come by) has assisted the US empire to extend its decline, and to totter on for a decade or so longer than it would have done without the drug money.

Let’s never forget that the three premiere big loot earners in human society (lamentable schmucks that we are!) are arms, oil and drugs, licit and illicit.

Two of these have their chief production centres in the Corridor.

And the current proxy war there between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia isn’t about that? Is driven by some bollocks about ‘terrorism’? Oh for god’s sake! Are we grown up, or aren’t we?

Well, let’s see your dedication to “democracy” ambassador, and do have the decency to post my comment.

You really need to know who Mr. Gul is, before you get exited. He denies Bin Laden’s involvementin 911, and he claims it was all an inside job by the Zionists. In his eternal words “not all Jews are bad”.

That aside, did you actually read the interview?

Counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council Richard Clarke said, “I have reason to believe that a retired head of the ISI was able to pass information along to Al Qaeda that the attack was coming.”

Then Gul proceeds to refute this, by citing the yaer of his retirement! What kind of dumb refutation is that. Clarke made it clear, that the person involved, was “retired”. Gul clearly dones’t have a very high IQ. He has remained in a position of incredible influence in Pakistan, and the world, because he is the mastermind behind Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy. That’s why he attends Islamists conferences, in Peshawar and Swat. The man is untouchable.

The U.S. had not informed the Pakistan army chief, Jehangir Karamat, of its intentions, he said.

How does he know? First he says he doesn’t know anything, then he says he knows.

I’ll tell you how he knows, since Mr. Hammonds lacks the experience to know who he is talking to.

Mr. Gul knows, because his Deobandists have remained in the ISI at all levels, adn regularly feed him information. He has his own parallel intelligence – mafia -terrorist network, and it goes from the very tops of the Pakistani military and security apparatus, to the fighers in Waziristan, in the Punjab, and Kashmir and Jammu.

Dr. Gul claims he has been black-listed from the UK. This is absolutely true. In fact, there have been efforts to put him on a terrorist list – since he openly supports, cavorts, and coordinates with the Taleban.

His claims about 911 are idiotic, to say the least.

Reading the interview, one wonders how this wonder of an imbecile ever made it into the upper echelons of the ISI.

Central Asian oil fields?

Which Central Asia is he talking about?

There are no oil fields in Central Asia!! Unless of course some of you need a basic geography lesson.

Well Ambassador Murray, you only discredit yourself with posting such nonsense. Keep it up old chap, keep it up!

I actually spent a year in Afghanistan (1999-2000)at the time when the Taliban were in power. Suprisingly enough, I got on quite well with them and was a friend of the then Foriegn Minister,who used to some to my house every Saturday to watch CNN and the BBC news.

For a fact the Taliban had drastically reduced the production of the opium poppy by about 60% and were doing rather well in ensuring it was not grown in remote areas.

The head of the UN Security,was a friend of mine and very well informed about the process the Taliban were undertaking to eradicate poppy production, and he was rather impressed. In fact his reports to New York said that the UN should encourage the Taliban to educate more farmers to switch from poppy cultivation to more sustainable crops.

I personally was engaged in Kabul on the reparation of underground water scources which provied water to agriculyural fields, previously used to grow poppies, so I know what I am talking about.

Many of the members of Karzai’s cabinet are the very people who were actively involved in the drugs trade during the Taliban regieme and are still very active in it today, I know because I met most of them personally.

Oh, by the way AllanGreen, if you had ever been anywhere near Kabul, which you probably have not, you might pass by the Bechtel office in Shar I Knaw street and ask them about thier intrests in the oil pipline thay are currently operating.

Lockerbie is currently in the news and the evidence the CIA,who were first on the scene naturally,sought to either cover up or plant-I’m thinking of the timer that was used at the “trial” to implicate Libya,for example-is now exercising truthseekers across the web.

CIA involvement in the global drug trade is at the bottom of the Lockerbie bombing and this,linked with the long-standing US drive for full spectrum dominance,helps explain US involvement in China,Formosa(now Taiwan)Indonesia and Vietnam as well as SE Asia generally over two centuries.

The Diem regime in S.Vietnam had as its raison d’etre not so much an ideological struggle with communism- more a compulsion to,with the US,make maximum profits from the Golden Triangle drug trade they inherited when Chiang’s nationalist Chinese were defeated in 1949.

The participation of US elites in Asian drug trafficking goes back to the China trade.

It has been a short step from this original China trade to the initiation,participation and prolongation of profitable wars for these US elites.

The use of airspace domination to transport drugs from Afghanistan was happening in SE Asis with the OSS transport planes from the latter stages of the US WW2 effort against Japan in SE Asia.

The OSS became the CIA by which time it had been substantially augmented in terms of intelligence and subversion capability by Operation Paperclip.This op. brought Nazis like Gehlen into the CIA program.

Foremost authorities on CIA involvement in the global drug trade are former Canadian diplomat,Peter Dale Scott who has recent piece at Global Research, and Alfred McCoy.

it seems odd that you’ve posted here criticising Craig, but have failed to engage with the key points that Craig has raised. Nowhere does Craig suggest that we simply believe Gul. Instead, Craig affirms the truth of three elements of the interview, elements of which Craig claims direct knowledge.

AllanGreen, if you know of evidence please post it or post a link to it. Perhaps you could even tell us all a little about yourself and the source of your expertise in these matters. After all, if we want to know more about Craig, we can read his books.

The bad guys are the ones like Frazer who, like Lawrence of Arabia, study and spy on Muslim countries in order to pursue the aims of the Crusades.

In this discussion it has always been clear with Craig that his motives are decent and human, but that does not necessarily mean that he is the best informed. Far from it, most people have difficulty in comprehending why anyone would wish to participate in the destruction of a beautiful religion and its noble followers, through war,drugs, blowing up the twin towers, or any other means.

In order for ordinary mortals to undestand who would want to do such a thing, you have to grasp the motive, which is that the children of Israel were the custodians of God’s religion of Monotheism, until they rejected their prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, because they were too busy cutting deals with the Jack Straws of the Roman Empire. ‘The last thing we need is a prophet calling us to our religion now. There is money and power to be made. Shut up and go away.’

The bad guys in this flick are Zionists and their target, the good guys is Islam. yes, there is a lot of opportunism and fantasy in between, because the film has to sell, but this is the theme.

Really all films have the same theme, because good against evil is the only theme that interests the human being.

I have commented here on occasions about there being no one Islam, since it has variations of extreme and moderate reading just as any other belief system. I have met Islamic scholars with extreme views (see link to article I wrote in June) and I have met Muslims with specifically moderate views too. I tend to find that those towards the latter end of the spectrum would not insist that everyone should convert to Islam, or that Islam is “better” than Christianity, or Buddhism, Zoanastrianism etc. Instead, the thoughtful Muslim chaps I met whose reading of Islamic texts specifically reject extreme interpretations – there was a genuine respect for other peoples beliefs, and a moderate outlook that intends for people of all faiths and none to rub along together just fine.

Insisting that Islam is the only way, then, works against that, in my view.

My problem with all religions is that they are used like flannels, washing off and giving absolution, or as swaddling cloth for the prevailing morals of the millenium, the believe falls to the wayside when politics and vested interests raise their ugly head.

Add to that a strict hirarchial code with all its excesses, personal intentions and machiavellian desires and you have what we got today. Self critic is seen as heracy, if anybody remembers the debates around mkodern theological thinking between Dr. Kueng and the Catholic church, it was futile and dogma proofed to be the brake to any modern libertarian theological movement, it would have been great if Woijtila and his close advisor for 20 years then, Raztinger, realised that they could save millions of poor lives by dragging the catholic church into the 20th. cnetury, never mind the 21st.

But it was not to be and today, riven by sexual scandals, again due to dogmatic insistence on mediaval practises, the catholic church has lost hundreds of millions due to their inappropriate sexual behyaviour with minors and anyone else for that matter, celebacy does not seem to be all the rage anymore and I detest pious morals from arch bishops who themselves have covered up for those that went against the ‘sacriments’ of the catholic church.

Zbigniew Brzezinski revealed a hidden Fact that on July 3, 1979, unknown to the public and American Congress that President Jimmy Carter secretly authorized $500 million to create an international terrorist movement that would spread Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and “de-stabilize” the Soviet Union…

The CIA called this Operation Cyclone and in the following years poured $4 billion into setting up Islamic training schools in Pakistan (Taliban means “student”).

These people were sent to the CIA’s spy training camp in Virginia, where future members of al-Qaeda were taught “sabotage skills” – terrorism.

Others were recruited at an Islamic school in Brooklyn, New York, In Pakistan; they were directed by British MI6 officers and trained by the SAS.

====================

As America teetered on the brink of entering World War II, Charles A. Lindbergh gave a fateful speech that did more damage to the America First movement for peace than all the propagandistic efforts of the pro-war groups he named in Des Moines that day. In his oration, the great aviator and American hero sought to define who and what had brought us to the point of no return:

“The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.

“Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.”

“The First World War was by far the bloodiest conflict in human history up to that time. Schwartz and Skinner noted, “Woodrow Wilson proclaimed a war for democracy against ‘Prussian dictatorship,’ but that was propaganda. Germany had civil rights, an elected parliament, competing parties, universal male suffrage, and an unparalleled system of social democracy.” Germany was far more democratic than either the British or French empire.”

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“The West’s policy – in other words, the policy of the Anglo-Americans, as the European Union does not have a policy worth citing – toward the Middle East has long been formulated by Bernard Lewis. The British-born Lewis started his career as an intelligence officer and has remained in bed with British intelligence ever since. Avowedly anti-Russia and pro-Israel, Lewis reaped a rich harvest among US academia and policymakers. He brought president Jimmy Carter’s virulently anti-Russian National Security Council chief, Zbigniew Brzezinski, into his fold in the 1980s, and made the US neo-conservatives, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, dance to his tune on the Middle East in 2001. In between, he penned dozens of books and was taken seriously by people as a historian. But, in fact, Lewis is what he always was: a British intelligence officer. . . .

The recent developments in Uzbekistan have all the hallmarks of the same process. This time the objective is to weaken China, Russia, and possibly India, using the HT to unleash the dogs of war in Central Asia. It is not difficult for those on the ground to see what is happening. The leader of the Islamic Party of Tajikistan, Deputy Prime Minister Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, has identified HT as a Western-sponsored bogeyman for “remaking Central Asia”. . . .